ling may remain strong and pure; yet this may be wholly concealed
from common view. Indeed the favourite style of different ages is so
different and wanders so far from propriety that if it were not that
first rate Writers in all nations and tongues are governed by common
principles, we might suppose that truth and nature were things not to be
looked for in books; hence to an unpractised Reader the productions of
every age will present obstacles in various degrees hard to surmount; a
deformity of style not the worst in itself but of that kind with which
he is least familiar will on the one hand be most likely to render him
insensible to a pith and power which may be within, and on the other
hand he will be the least able to see through that sort of falsehood
which is most prevalent in the works of his own time. Many of my
Readers, to apply these general observations to the present case, must
have derived pleasure from the epitaph of Lord Lyttleton and no doubt
will be startled at the comparison I have made; but bring it to the test
recommended it will then be found that its faults, though not in degree
so intolerable, are in kind more radical and deadly than those of the
strange composition with which it has been compared.

The course which we have taken having brought us to the name of this
distinguished Writer--Pope--I will in this place give a few observations
upon his Epitaphs,--the largest collection we have in our language, from
the pen of any Writer of eminence. As the epitaphs of Pope and also
those of Chiabrera, which occasioned this dissertation, are in metre, it
may be proper here to enquire how far the notion of a perfect epitaph,
as given in a former Paper, may be modified by the choice of metre for
the vehicle, in preference to prose. If our opinions be just, it is
manifest that the basis must remain the same in either case; and that
the difference can only lie in the superstructure; and it is equally
plain, that a judicious man will be less disposed in this case than in
any other to avail himself of the liberty given by metre to adopt
phrases of fancy, or to enter into the more remote regions of
illustrative imagery. For the occasion of writing an epitaph is
matter-of-fact in its intensity, and forbids more authoritatively than
any other species of composition all modes of fiction, except those
which the very strength of passion has created; which have been
acknowledged by the human heart, and have become